The Pygmalion Story
by clockwork starlight
Summary: Modern AU retelling of Sakura and Ino. Hint of girl-love. Possibly more to come, but for now: one-shot.


If you are at all familiar with the myth of Pygmalion, then you may catch the references, but if you aren't, have a summary: Pygmalion was a Greek who wasn't all that into marriage and love, but not in the usual way Greek men didn't go for women. Apparently had a great eye for detail and the female form though, since he carved a beautiful ivory statue in honor of Aphrodite. Guy was not a friend to feminists. He went and fell in love with his delicate and silent white lady (creepy as well, I mean, creating it kind of makes it his child) and prayed to the goddess herself for a woman, implied: the stone cold foxy one specifically. Since he was so in love with it, she brought it to life for him and presumably gave her working lady bits (guy doesn't like women, I wouldn't count on his accurately doing an image of one).

So the icon was early, but here's another kind of tribute to one of the greatest artists in the history of the universe, Vincent Van Gogh born March 30 in the 19th century. The idea of love bringing art to life, moving humans and gods alike, of finding refuge in creating beauty, all those speak to me.

But then, so does my stuffed penguin.

* * *

The Pygmalion Story (InoxSakura)

When you're right  
You're right beneath my skin  
I forget sometimes, I let you in  
-Death of Me, _Brother_

When Ino is six and just about tired of trying to get her daddy's friends' children to sit in a tea party with her, she discovers a wealth of potential playmates in the park across from mama's flower shop. They like her, because her blonde hair is soft and pretty, and her blue eyes sparkle like the water spilling from the fountain. They like her because she shares her toys and doesn't cry when she finds caterpillars on her shirt. They like her because she always decides what game they should play when no one else will, and it's always fun. The girls look up to her and the boys tolerate her better than the other representatives of the fairer sex, and the parents all envy the Yamanaka household for their charming young treasure.

When Ino is six and a little more, she finds the group picking on a pink haired girl who does nothing but try to hide behind her hair. After she makes her displeasure known, the others leave the girl, opting to ignore her since Ino doesn't want them to tease.

"They're making fun of your forehead, huh?" she asks. She doesn't really need a response and plows ahead like always. Some day she'll learn about good intentions and where they lead, but for now her heart is as gold as her hair. "I'm Ino. What's your name?"

"S-sakura," replies the shrinking violet, finally looking her in the face.

"Okay Sakura," she says, fussing with the pink locks. "You wait right here."

Ino skips over to the intersection and darts across when the light flashes 'walk'. She bursts into the shop and dives at her mother's knees.

She leaves triumphantly and reappears at the sniffling girl's side with a bright red ribbon tucked in her pocket. A quick bow and a smile later, Sakura is staring at her, vision unhindered.

"Much better." Ino congratulates herself on a job well done. Doing her dolls' hair was not as stupid as that Shikarmaru said it was.

"B-but my f-forehead," Sakura protests weakly.

"It's because you're hiding it," Ino proclaims as one well versed in playground politics. You hide your toys, people take them from you. You say you're scared of spiders, and inevitably one will end up on your head. "Now come on. Let's play tag with everyone."

-

When Ino is twelve and Sakura has stopped turning the color of her hair when she talks to other people, they learn they have a crush on the same boy. Sakura stops talking to her. Ino doesn't understand that her friend is afraid. She has had her boys even when she had nothing else; however unwilling company they might have been, they have always known her name. Ino has never been isolated as Sakura has, and she has never felt she is just a pale copy of her best friend. Sakura has to become her own person, without Ino's help or Ino's friends or Ino's blessing.

If they both like Sasuke, Sakura has no doubt that Sasuke will choose Ino, because Sakura is Ino-Lite and everyone knows it. Sakura has learned, even if Ino hasn't, that she needs to stop looking up to her, because she can't be Ino's Barbie doll forever. Staying with Ino means staying in Ino's shadow, how ever comfortable and fun it might be.

The others in their group have no qualms about following her lead and ignoring her. Sakura doesn't notice because there's Sasuke, and Naruto whose loud demands for her attention fill the quiet around her.

Sakura believes she's getting along just fine in the seventh grade without any of her friends from elementary school. She doesn't realize that she can't actually talk to anyone about what she's feeling. Sasuke doesn't like whiny girls, and no girl in her right mind talks to Naruto. She has to keep it to herself when she wants to complain about the English homework or puzzle through the geometry.

Ino is hurt Sakura would trade a lunch table full of people and communal jelly roll pens and notes on Hello Kitty paper and borrowing jewelry and CDs and nail polish, all for a boy. Sakura and Ino aren't the only ones who like Sasuke. There are three sitting at this table and they have no problem talking about how cute he is and how awesome at sports and how you can't put Sasuke five times when you MASH, it's cheating.

Ino doesn't understand how a boy could mean more to her than all of this. But since it does, Ino will just have to have him.

-

The next time they actually talk is outside the principal's office, after they realize they can't just ignore each other forever.

Sakura is still trying not to cry, but her hair is still ragged and missing and the bruises on her face are getting darker. Ino never noticed the blood trickling from the corner of her mouth until Shikamaru roughly grabs her by the chin, armed with a wet tissue.

"We should have called a teacher," mutters Shikamaru as he swipes at her face.

"They were going to leave while we did, and you know it. I was just going to tell them to stop and make them if they didn't. I don't know why you came with me," she shoots back. Ino takes aikido and karate because Daddy doesn't ever want his pretty little princess to be vulnerable. It makes her fearless enough to take on two older boys and a girl when Sasuke and Naruto are beaten and Sakura is broken.

Something else though, makes her brave enough to shove Shikamaru's hand away and call out.

"If you want, my mother can fix your hair before you go home."

"Why didn't you tell him I cut it myself?" Sakura doesn't want to admit she misses Ino's shadow. Ino is still Ino, kind and outspoken and warm, even when they're supposed to be rivals, but it's too late to regret cutting ties now.

"Why would you want to help those freaks get out of trouble? No one is going to believe you took a pair of safety scissors to your head, and 'she did it to herself' is the weakest cover up for bullying ever."

"You can't protect me forever," Sakura says at last. "I won't lose to you."

Ino blinks but realizes that this is a step toward reparations, even if she doesn't fully understand how. "Right back at you."

They compete the only way they know.

Sasuke goes to Sakura's sweet sixteen party but not Ino's.

Ino donates most of her hair to Locks of Love and still is chosen for Homecoming Queen.

Sakura gets asked to Prom by a senior, a nearly unheard of feat for a junior with such a small social circle.

Ino has the most yearbook pages.

Sakura gets accepted into a medical program early.

Ino is valedictorian.

Somehow they decide they are tied. After months of trying so hard, Sakura wonders if she's bloomed. Ino has always been vibrant and alive, and Sakura thinks if nothing else, she's not just something molded in someone else's image any more.

-

It galls her nearly as much as it relieves her when they find out they go are going to the same university. It's not like they share their dreams with each other any more.

"A neurosurgeon? You?" Sakura wants to laugh but doesn't, because it's not actually funny. Instead she picks at her fries while the blonde collects her dishes.

Ino just shrugs. "You know I like to get in people's heads. Why not with something sharp?"

Sakura's first roommate is a nutritionist and twitches in her sleep and is generally inconsiderate about bringing her boyfriend in and out of the room at odd hours. Ino's roommate never showed up, so the powers that be just stick them together and move on to the next crisis.

They stare at one another over the threshold of, now, _their_ room; Sakura clutching her suitcase like a lifeline and Ino in the middle of painting her toes a shocking shade of violet. Ino's half of the room is mostly purples and golds and Sakura thinks it looks oddly comfortable, like living inside an iris. _Her_ things are a jumble of hand-me-downs and final sales, but they are hers and hers alone.

Ino points at a purple stereo with the nail polish brush.

"I like music while I work. I will put on headphones if you ask." She points to the foot of her bed, where an unplugged iron and an ironing-board the length of her forearm are sitting. "That and that," the little wand gestures at the hairdryer on the vanity, "are the only things you can use without asking. Try not to set the place on fire." Ino's blonde head bends back down to her foot and Sakura is left wondering if maybe she should request a new roommate.

Even though they're in the same introductory classes, they don't compete with one another because the material is hard and the professors have _expectations_ and honestly, they're above that now.

They're good enough together that they end up sharing a room every year.

They kind of miss each other when their courses diverge and one or both of them spends all night out of the room doing research or working with her teachers or just getting away from school.

Ino complains Sakura smells like corpse and Sakura can only retort that Ino is walking zombie-bait when they both know Ino's program doesn't get to physically work with brains till later.

And when one of Ino's mentors gets into an accident, Ino goes out and gets herself quietly, but quickly, very drunk. When she gets back Sakura notes her mascara is still perfect and she walks in her purple platforms rather than staggers.

"I've never seen you cry," says Sakura when Ino has fought her way into her pajamas.

"And you never will," snaps Ino.

"Right." Sakura turns around and faces the wall, re-angling her reading lamp toward the textbook on her lap.

She figured Ino would hide under her covers, muffling any noise with that gigantic plush neuron, but she's surprised when the round yellow cushion smacks her in the head. She's fired up when the neuron flies at her head. She bookmarks the page she's on and arms herself with her body pillow.

They haven't had a pillowfight in years.

When they are both tired out and their pillows have been beaten into pancakes, they find themselves in an awkward quiet. Ino's eyes start dripping and so Sakura orients herself the other way again. She's expecting ladylike sobs into a tissue, but Ino plants her face in Sakura's spine and bawls her eyes out, fisting the material of her pajama top.

She can't give Ino any comfort like this, which seems to be the point. All she _can_ do is let Ino's hair slide against her, let Ino's nails claw at the cotton of her shirt, let Ino's tears splash hotly on her and let the smell of tequila and Bath & Body Works wash over her. She never knew the skin of her back was so damn sensitive. Sakura knows this is not the time to feel sexy, but her nerves don't care about the situation.

They've been trying to one-up each other forever, trying to create envy in lieu of admiration. But for once in her life, Ino is relying on her with her weakness, and the realization is like breaking out from a prison she never knew she was in.

The first thing she does with her new freedom is turn around give Ino a kiss on the forehead.


End file.
